The empty fort is the Zhuge Liang story everyone knows. The garrison is thin, Sima Yi arrives, Zhuge Liang opens the gates and plays the qin on the wall, and Sima Yi retreats rather than walk into an ambush.
Chen Shou’s biography of Zhuge Liang does not contain it. Pei Songzhi quotes Guo Chong’s five anecdotes, one of which is close: an empty city at Yangping. Pei then rejects it. Sima Yi was still at Wan and not yet facing Zhuge Liang, and the military situation at Yangping does not fit. Pei’s conclusion is that the story is not credible.
The novel turns a rejected anecdote into the climax of a personal duel, and adds the music. As a scene it works. As a report from 234, or from any other northern expedition, it has no reliable source. This site marks it as romance and keeps it out of the outcomes at Jieting and Wuzhangyuan.
The Wei commander at Jieting was Zhang He. Placing the empty fort at Jieting is a later confusion of two different stories.